Recession Proof Investments To Help You Clear Debt

When you’re trying to clear debt you need to balance your finances so you’ve got more coming in than going out. But sometimes that just isn’t possible. You might find yourself in a position where, no matter how frugal you are, the debts are just too large to clear with your current income. In these situations, there’s only one thing to do. Bring more money in. The obvious way to do this is getting a higher paid job but that’s a tall order and you can’t always find one. You might also love your job and not want to leave unless you absolutely have to. So, how are you going to pay down those debts? Investing the money that you do have and making it grow is a great way to pay off what you owe much faster. It’s a bit of a long process but after you’ve paid off the debts, you can continue to make money from your investments and make sure that you don’t get yourself into a bad financial position in the future.

Traditional investments like stocks and share will give you a quicker return but there is a lot of risks involved. Those kinds of investments are at the mercy of the markets and if there is an economic downturn, you could find that the value of your shares drops drastically and you lose everything. That’s not a risk worth taking when you’re already in debt but there is another way. There are plenty of fairly low-risk alternative investments that are, for the most part, immune to market fluctuations so you don’t face the chance of losing it all. If you’re considering investment as a way of clearing debt, these are your best options.

Art

Buying art requires a pretty big initial investment but the returns can be massive. The art market tends to be completely separate from the ups and downs of the stock market so even during a period when everybody’s traditional investments are losing value, you’re still likely to be making money. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be fluctuations in the market so you still need to be savvy. If you think you have a good eye for art, you could enter the market with much smaller amounts of money. You’ll need to invest in up and coming artists that are going to be worth more in future. It’s a gamble, but if you get it right, it can seriously pay off. If you want a less risky investment, you’ll need to put more money into buying work from artists that are already established.

Precious Metals

Precious metals like gold and silver are much more stable than cash. While their prices will go up and down quite a bit, they almost always go up in price during a recession as people trade in their volatile stocks and shares for the more stable investment of gold or silver. Buying gold bullion is going to be expensive so it might be best to start off with silver. Browse for silver coins and buy any that you can while prices are fairly low. Once prices rise again, you can sell them for a profit and put that money into clearing some of your debt. If you can afford to, it’s best to wait for a market downturn and capitalize on the investors that are rapidly trying to put their money into precious metals.

Wine

Wine investors make, on average, somewhere between 6 and 15 percent return every year on their collection. But if you don’t pick the right bottles, you won’t get anything. Wine collectors are notoriously picky and the vintages that are sought after change regularly. If you’re going to invest in wine, take some time to learn about the industry before you part with any money. Once you start buying, make sure you’re always up to date with the latest trends otherwise you’ll end up wasting good money on wines that nobody wants. It’s absolutely vital that you store your wine correctly, otherwise, you simply won’t be able to sell it. Wine experts can easily tell if a wine hasn’t been stored at the correct temperature and once it’s ruined, it’s ruined. You may as well have burned the money you spent on it.

Real Estate

Real estate is a famously sensible investment to make. Prices are appreciating year on year and they don’t look set to slow down anytime soon. Rental properties are a brilliant investment that brings in regular income that you can use to clear your debts. You can also sell them off in future and use the profits to clear your debt in one go. If you’re worried about the risk of investing in a property, you can do it through an investment group. These groups comprise of lots of different investors that all put money into an apartment complex and get a portion of the monthly rents. If you were to buy one single apartment and rent it out, you’re in a tricky situation if you can’t find tenants or the tenants you do have are failing to pay the rent. But in an investment group, you’ll still be getting a portion of the overall rent for the building, even if a few apartments are empty so there is nowhere near as much risk.

Hedge Funds

Diversification is one of the best ways to remove the risk of investing. Putting all of your eggs in one basket is dangerous because if that investment goes south, that’s it. Using a hedge fundis a safe way of diversifying your investments and reducing risk. Hedge fund managers take money from lots of investors and spread it out across lots of different investments, paying a portion of the overall profits to each party. It’s much safer because it’s highly unlikely that every single one of the investments that your money is tied up is going to fail.

When you’re in significant amounts of debt, investing your money is the only way to make it grow into an amount that you can use to clear what you owe, but you need to make sure you do it safely or you risk losing it all.